Tag Archives: forecasting

Most of the day spent in the Climate Change MOOC. This is the first week and I’m getting used to the rhythm and expectations. Running just a bit behind the pace they’re setting though I’ll catch up tomorrow and work out a good way to stay abreast of things.

One new learning for me, though it’s obvious in hindsight, is the dependence of climate science on meteorology. It would not have been possible to raise climate related questions in any scientific way without particular advances driven by the desire to have better, that is more accurate, weather forecasts.

In fact, the first weather forecasts using modern techniques occurred in the early 20th century thanks to a Quaker scientist, Lewis Fry Richardson. It was Richardson who decided weather could be forecast by creating a grid system over the whole planet and getting values from each grid for such variables as temperature, wind speed and direction, humidity, cloud cover. This grid system and the collection of data from within them are at the heart of modern weather forecasting and a variation on that theme also drives the climate modelling about which we hear so often.

The rapid advancement in computer technology and speed came at just the right time, since as larger and electronic computers developed, so did our awareness that the climate was in fact changing. Without computers the kind of calculations necessary for climate modeling would have overwhelmed researchers.

I refer you again to the Links at the bottom of this website if you would like to pursue greater depth about any of these ideas.

Latest Atmospheric PPM

“Not I, not anyone else, can travel that road for you,
You must travel it for yourself.
It is not far, it is within reach,
Perhaps you have been on it since you were born and did not know.”
– Walt Whitman

Climate Communication (Climate Communication operates as a project of the Aspen Global Change Institute, a non-profit organization dedicated to furthering the scientific understanding of Earth systems and global environmental change. Animated and narrated graphics help tell the story of climate change science. )

The Copenhagen Diagnosis (synthesizes the most policy-relevant climate science published since the close-off of material for the last IPCC report.)

Professor Richard Somerville website "Perhaps the most important function of climate science on an issue of broad interest like global warming is to help educate the public and to provide useful input into the policy process." Somerville is one of the MOOC's instructors and a former Scripps scientist.

RealClimate (a commentary site on climate science by working climate scientists for the interested public and journalists. We aim to provide a quick response to developing stories and provide the context sometimes missing in mainstream commentary.)

Links for getting up to speed quickly. (a one stop link for resources that people can use to get up to speed on the issue of climate change. provided by RealClimate)

The Global Modeling and Assimilation Office(GMAO) works to maximize the impact of satellite observations in climate, weather and atmospheric composition prediction using comprehensive global models and data assimilation.

The Regional Climate Model Evaluation System (RCMES) is designed to greatly facilitate regional-scale evaluations of climate and Earth system models by providing standardized access to a vast and comprehensive set of observations, as well as tools for performing common analysis and visualization tasks.

Interactive Science Simulations

Fun, interactive, research-based simulations of physical phenomena from the PhET™ project at the University of Colorado. (this link goes to climate change sims)

Surging Seas Map pages show threats from sea level rise and storm surge to all 3,000+ coastal towns, cities, counties and states in the Lower 48.

CO2Now.org makes it easy to see the most current CO2 level and what it means.

Resources For The Great Wheel

General links in areas of interest to Great Wheel Readers
living in season (Waverly Fitzgerald's ways to do just that)